The Things She Wants To Hear
by lilysxx
Summary: Cissy had been told everything she had wanted to hear, every careless sweet nothing, so Remus told her the thruth, told her something that hurt. And when that didn't work he lied her away. Submitted for the 'Easily Bruised' competition, Cissy/Remus if you don't like the pairing then you don't have to read it
1. Chapter 1

**The 'Easily Bruised' Competition**

**Pairing: Remus/Narcissa**

**Prompt: I've heard everything that I wanted**

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He'd seen her everywhere since his second year, so much so that he couldn't be certain when it was he had fallen in love with her.

He had ignored it at first, the way sometimes she'd draw his eye, how he liked to watch her sometimes as she giggled at something a friend said. He'd shrugged off the funny way she had of appearing in his dreams, how he admired the curve of her lips and the small fault in her smile, the way the left side of her mouth smiled wider than the right.

It was only when, in his sixth year, Remus would close his eyes and see her there, a smiling imprint like a negative of a photograph taped to the back of his eyelids, that he realised he had fallen.

Certainly they had met, sometimes they had even talked. She and Regulus had spent some time with Sirius and the rest of the group back in the sunnier days of the second year, when the lines were blurred and divisions were less decided. Remus remembered blissfully sunny summer evenings when the two had sat and watched the boys on their silly broomsticks, competing for this or that, he remembered with a disquieted remorse how she had laughed at his words. How her laugh had sounded like bells.

He wished he had known then how she would make him feel, the torment she would put him through.

Sometimes he would sit in sad silence, staring wistfully out of the window of the common room and seeing nothing except her, saw her in the wind which swept up the leaves and whipped them into a gay dance, saw her in the peaceful waters of the black lake, saw her in the brilliance of the setting sun. Often his behaviour was noticed by his companions, and Sirius or James would come up and ask him what was wrong. Often he pretended it was all part of his _furry little problem,_ however mostly he avoided James. Sometimes he worried that James recognised in him what he knew James felt for Lily.

So it was, when for five years he had watched her without a word, that the attraction became too great and Remus could no longer watch from afar. It was in the library that he first found her sitting alone at a table, surrounded by heavy tomes on Ancient Runes, eyebrows knotted, where Remus took a place on the other end of the table and pulled out a History of Magic essay he had no intention of writing.

She smiled cordially as he sat, recognising him despite separation of their houses as the death tolls rose.

It took almost an hour for Narcissa to slam down her quill and groan so loudly Madam Pince made a sharp shushing noise the disturbed every piece of paper within a five-metre radius.

"Trouble?" Remus asked eagerly, looking up from the paragraph and a half he had managed to write in-between stolen glances. Narcissa nodded pathetically. "Mind if I take a look?"

"Be my guest," she sighed, and then muttered something under her breath which sounded vaguely like _should have taken Divination. _

Remus translated the runes in a few seconds and pointed out her mistake, then sat back down, momentarily satisfied.

It only took another few minuted before Narcissa groaned again.

"Need more help?" Remus offered with a sympathetic smile. Again she nodded, though this time she simply pulled out the seat beside her own and offered it to Remus.

The two spent the next hour puzzling over the runes, falling into thoughtful silence at harder passages before building up to excitable climaxes as the translations fell into place, laughing and clapping when finally they solved their problems. When they had finished, Narcissa flashed Remus the most dazzling of her smiles.

"This bit, it's about the dragon, _the most majestic and terrifying of creatures. _That's it." He determined, satisfied, "Not wrong either, dragons are the most protective of creatures. They'll die before letting anything harm their young, before letting anything bite them," _before letting anyone turn them into a werewolf because they were stupid enough to insult one, _he thought bitterly. He trailed off, shutting the book and handing it back to Cissy, who hadn't noticed his expression darken.

"Thanks, Remus, you are _the absolute best,_" she assured him, placing her hand lightly on his in what was supposed to be an emphatic gesture. However, where their skin met a shock was sent right to their respective hearts and Remus felt his breath catch in his throat and his heart momentarily forget what it was doing.

The atmosphere, a moment ago light and pleasant and meaningless, thickened and tensed and all at once the smile was gone as Narcissa retracted her hand and frowned ever so slightly. With unnerving and unbroken focus she stared at her fingertips and then at Remus, as if trying to make a connection.

Finally, confused and a little scared, she met Remus' eyes for what felt like the first time

Clarity.

Suddenly, Remus could see it in her eyes. She understood the undeniable and inconceivable truth Remus had spent these last years trying to fathom and order into something which made some sort of sense. He watched her eyes prick with tears and her breathing shorten as she realised the cruel and beautiful web fate weaves. Slowly, she placed her hand back on Remus'.

Her eyes fell closed as she felt again what Remus had been trying to rationalise ever since it had happened a few moments earlier, the shock of something chemical which made his heart leap when he felt her skin brush against his own.

"I don't understand," she said quietly, even though it wasn't true.

"I'm sorry," Remus replied. And then Narcissa shook her head stubbornly, collected her papers into a messy pile and left without daring to look back, lest she be reminded of what she was so determined to deny.


	2. Chapter 2

A few weeks after the incident, luck (whether good or bad remains undecided), threw the two together again during one of the Slug Club's annual evenings. Tonight's was in celebration of Valentine's day, and Slughorn had insisted that everybody bring a guest. Whilst not strictly being in the Slug Club, the professor had always expressed a wish for Remus to join in the festivities, and upon occasion Remus found himself expertly roped into situations he couldn't untangle himself from.

"And you're sure she'll be there?" James asked, straightening his bow tie in the mirror and rumpling his hair slightly more than usual in anticipation.

"I hope so, Regulus brought her last time," he replied, looking hopelessly in the mirror. No matter what he wore, it always looked ragged on him.

"Regulus? What in Merlin's name are you talking about, Moony?" James asked. Remus turned back and frowned at James, not sure what he could be talking about, before realising with terror what he had let slip.

"Oh, I mean, yeah, Lily was invited when I was. If I couldn't get out of it, neither could she."

"And she's not bringing anyone with her?"

"She's taking Alice Fletcher as a favour, at least that's what she told me. If you really want to know, James, you could just ask her yourself," Remus chided, he often found himself chiding.

"Don't be absurd," James replied, taking the bow tie off with a huff and throwing it onto the bed, turning back to Remus with an exhibitionist gesture. "Now, how do I look?"

The party was in full swing as Remus and James arrived. Slughorn had spared no expense, and the room was made up with dusty rose coloured drapes and a carpet of a deep wine. A floating orchestra was playing a simple waltz as couples twirled on the heart-shaped dance floor. Meanwhile, small cocktail dishes carried by men in lavender livery permeated the chattering crowd and the air smelt faintly of perfume and sweat and the sweetness of alcohol.

The moment James caught sight of Lily he vanished and Remus found himself quite alone amidst those of great potential and great expectations or, if in possession of neither, great wealth and familial connections.

It was mid-consumption of his third _canapé _and just as he was beginning to resolve that he really ought to leave and this whole evening had become quite tiresome the moment he had arrived that he caught it, a snatch of blonde and black streaked her and a glittering emerald dress and he knew by just that fraction of an image and the way his heart flipped that it was her, that she had come. Blindly, ignoring the complaints as he shoved past people, he made to find her.

She looked breathtaking. Literally, Remus couldn't breathe as he watched her. She wore a dress of emerald silk that fell languidly to the floor, embellished with trails of gold embroidery that hugged her like spun sunshine. Pearls graced her neck and ears, put to shame by the pearly white of her perfect teeth as she smiled.

She looked so sad and lovely, standing where Remus found her beside the dance floor, alone and glowing, the most beautiful girl in the room.

"Cissy," Remus sighed as he drew up close to her. She tried to smile as she saw him, but could only manage to look up at him so that her thickened eyelashes brushed against her eyebrows. She looked the same as when he had last left her, confused and sad and frightened and suddenly very small.

"Dance with me?" she finally asked, her voice quivering slightly. Remus smiled.

"It would be my pleasure."

Dancing with Cissy was like flying. No step ever quite reached the floor, they remained constantly airborne as long as they kept eye contact and the music continued. Remus would never say anything, never try and make her uncomfortable, he tried to make her see with every step rather than with the in-eloquence of his own tongue. He tried to make her understand that it was _Ok _for her to love him, like he knew she did.

Cissy's confidence grew the more they danced. The closer they became, the more comfortable she became with meeting Remus' eye, with holding it, with smiling as she found in it affection as she had never known before. As the music slowed she pulled her hand from Remus' and slung it around his neck, sighing as he settled both hands on her lower back and pulled her closer to him. She felt his breath stir the hairs beside her ear, felt his easy proximity.

Slowly, the two allowed themselves to feel happy about their helpless predicament.

The song ended, and then the next, and then the next. The couples on the dance floor waned, swelled, and waned again until they were the last left amongst the house elves employed to clean up the mess, until the charm on the instruments had worn off and the lights were turned back up and the light returned to the sky in anticipation of sunrise.

It was then, finally, that the two realised themselves again, found themselves in each others arms and, most surprisingly, found their lips swollen and locked together.

Remus wasn't sure when he had begun to kiss her, but he had no intention of stopping. It wasn't only that he didn't want to stop, it was that he _couldn't. _There was a magnetism between them that kept his hands roaming up and down her back, kept him pulling her desperately towards him. Resisting it was harder than resisting gravity.

"Remus, I..." Cissy said, pulling away, but she had nothing to say. Just as she did, the sun they hadn't noticed was rising alighted on her face and her head snapped to find its source, a sliver of light through the curtain.

"It's morning," she gasped, slightly disappointed.

"Good morning," Remus said softly, kissing her lightly on the cheek.

"I have to go," she insisted, pulling away from Remus with all the effort she had amassed from fifteen years of life. She opened her mouth to say something before she went, and then changed her mind and turned, fleeing to her dorm.

All Remus could think, all he could feel, all he was, was the lingering trails of warmth in the palm of her hand where her fingers had been and the tingling on his lips and the buzzing in his head.


	3. Chapter 3

James had been all too prepared to assume the sordid of him when Remus refused to explain what had kept him from his bed last night, and it appears that other scandals of the evening had overshadowed his choice of dance partner so that nobody confronted him about it. Remus was relieved by this fact, he couldn't imagine the repercussions if people found out who he loved.

He knew the fallout would be worse for Narcissa. For Remus, she was just a poor choice. For Cissy, he was a shame, a curse, a blasphemous act. Her family would never accept him and his tainted blood and new-age ideas into their ranks, and Cissy couldn't bear to be abandoned by them.

So they kept their love a thing of the shadows, only allowed each other to know of its true light.

Most of their next exchanges happened in stolen glances across the Great Hall and liaisons in empty classrooms and veiled conversations seemingly about nothing. Sometimes, they could spend hours kissing, sometimes, they talked into the early hours of the morning and their lips never even touched. They learnt very early on that this love, which had seemed overpoweringly chemical, was not just a thing of physicality. They were also such compatible personalities it was as if they knew each other in an instant, knew the others demons, their weaknesses, knew how to make them cry.

But they also knew how to make the other's heart soar.

One night, when Remus was so completely trusting of Cissy that the thought of her revealing the secret he was about to share with her was unfathomable, he led Cissy out of the castle walls and to the Whomping Willow, where he showed her the way to the Shrieking Shack.

She didn't ask questions as they entered the draughty, dusty house and when he led her up the stairs and away from the destroyed ground floor to the bedroom upstairs.

He had meant nothing by it, he wasn't pressuring her into anything, but he was tired of hiding. He was tired of the constant paranoia that somebody could walk in and discover them at any second, he was tired of not being able to hold her hand and kiss her on the top of her head and tell her that he loved her.

He hadn't done that yet. Whilst he knew that she was well aware that he did, he hadn't wanted to make their love real to her. He hadn't wanted her to have to face up to her own love for him. Though it was there, it was the truth that could destroy her. She didn't want to face it, and Remus was quite in the habit of indulging her. It wasn't because she was spoilt, it was only because of the pleasure it brought him to do so.

Slowly, the two lay down in the bed together, and Cissy settled easily into the crook of Remus' shoulder as if it had been built for her, and they lay there in silence for a while, watching the dust they had disturbed form constellations in the air above.

"Tell me something," Cissy breathed.

"What do you want me to say?" Remus asked. He would tell her anything she wished, promise to move mountains and traverse the planets and rearrange the universe so it better suited her liking.

"I'm tired of people saying things I wanted them to say," she huffed, "I've heard every word of it, every pleasantry and compliment and sweet nothing they could think of. Tell me something true. Tell me something that hurts."

Remus paused, as if trying to think. But the answer was clear, crystalline, had been so since the very beginning. He hadn't realised he was crying, but his voice was thick and it cracked as her told her their only truth, their only pain.

"I love you," he confessed.

And it did hurt. Their love was so strong and so forceful it hit the both of them with a battering ram with every heart beat. Remus passed a hand up and down Cissy's arm as he felt her shaking beneath him. He wondered what the pain was doing to her. He had felt it all his life, he had grown a thick and callous skin. He wondered about Cissy though, wondered how easily she bruised. Closing his eyes he willed away her pain, wished he could take every graze and lay it along his own body so she wouldn't have to bear its weight.

She didn't say she loved him back. She didn't have to.

Fumbling for his lips, Cissy began to kiss him, deep, desperate kisses, kisses which were meant to be savoured because each one was numbered, counting down to zero. Remus felt again the magnetism he did every time, and every time had to resist the temptation that was mounting, that heightened every time she kissed him, every time she touched him. Finally, when Remus could take no more, he pushed her off.

"Cissy," he panted, "stop." But Narcissa gave him a strange sort of look, the kind which meant she wasn't sure she wanted to stop, rather than admitting he was right. Determinedly, she made to kiss him again.

"Cissy, please," he tried again, "once we start..."

"I know, Remus," she insisted.

"But I've never-"

"Neither have I-"

"And I don't want to be your-"

"But I want you to be-"

And then they both heard each other, and they both fell silent. Finally, very slowly, Remus pulled Cissy down to kiss him again, caressing her face as he did.

"Be careful with me."

Neither was sure who had said it, but they both meant it all the same.


	4. Chapter 4

The shack became their midnight sanctuary, where nobody would ever know or disapprove. They didn't live on the earth, they lived on a star, light-years away from the solemnity and disregard of civilisation. They would spend the night under the sheets and in each others arms, sneaking out in the early hours of the morning back to their dorms.

Those few months were heaven. To love and to be loved were two of the greatest feelings Remus had ever experienced. They gave him courage, made him strong. They made him smile even on the mornings when he woke up to new wounds, even when he thought how li ttle time they had, even when he thought how everything was counting down to the time when it would be over. Even then the love they shared made him feel impervious to all these wrongs and evils and demons. Narcissa was the good and the bad, the black and the white, she consumed him so completely that sometimes he struggled to recognise himself without her and ceased to care who he was or wasn't. She made him impervious to pain, insensible to cruelty, she made him better.

And she made him worse. And he loved her for both.

Through all this Remus had developed that certain sense of invincibility that keeps us all from curling up somewhere and hiding, terrified, from the dangers of the world. He was firm in the belief that nothing could hurt him, that nothing could change.

Perhaps that night was fateful, or perhaps it defied fate, but certainly it marked the end either way.

For it had come to pass that Narcissa, who had become quite accustomed to the later hours of the night, had taken to wandering the castle, exploring its nooks and crannies on the nights where she couldn't be with Remus. Most of this time she would spend as quiet reflection, and most of these reflections focused on him, and the softness of his eyes and the kindness in his voice and the doting affection with which he loved her.

And it was during one of these nightly excursions that she saw her love and lover, weakened and hunched, making for the Whomping Willow as she had so often done by his side.

At first she hadn't been quite sure what to make of this. Was he taking other girls to the shack too? She disregarded this thought almost immediately. Remus loved her so absolutely that there was no way he had space in his heart for another girl. Then maybe he was waiting for her, she thought, yes, that must be it.

She had failed to notice the sickly yellow of his skin as she followed behind him, failed to notice how his steps were weak and his footsteps fainter on the ground.

It was only by the time she had reached the shack that she made herself known to him, playfully tapping him on the shoulder with a broad smile.

His reaction was unprecedented and immediately made Cissy jump back, the smile gone. Had she heard him _snarl?_

His face was cruel and ferocious for a fraction of a second before he recognised her, but instead of relaxing into the relief and elation at her presence as she had expected, Narcissa saw fear and panic in his eyes.

"Cissy! What are you doing here?" he hissed.

"I followed you," she answered, trying to lighten the tone with a giggle that fell flat as he continued to frown at her, his expression grave.

"You have to leave."

"What? Remus I..."

"_Now!_" Cissy jumped. She had never heard Remus shout at anyone before, she had never thought he would shout at her. She didn't like it when people shouted, in her house when her father shouted it usually meant a beating. She remembered hearing shouts like that over Christmas dinners after Sirius had been sorted into Gryffindor. She remembered his face afterwards, black and blue and broken, outside and in.

Suddenly she was scared of Remus. She was about to learn why this was such an apt reaction.

It started with a series of small snaps of an indeterminate source. Then Remus' narrowed eyes widened with terror and Cissy saw what she had been ignoring. By the light of the full moon, Remus was changing. Each snap was a bone distorting, bending back and cracking. Each time it happened, he clenched his teeth and shut his eyes and tried to block out the pain.

"Get. Out." he yelped through clenched teeth and then his pupils dilated and his eyes shrank and suddenly Narcissa wasn't looking at Remus any more, she was looking at a wolf. A wolf who looked hungry and angry and the slightest bit saddened.

And then Cissy fled.


	5. Chapter 5

This was the end. Cissy felt it like the last chapter of a book, the sour taste of anticlimax that lingers in ones mouth when things are ending.

She didn't see Remus the next day, although she searched desperately for him. She had looked in the library and the Great Hall and, for the shortest of moments had popped into the infirmary as much as it hurt her to think he could be in there. She even considered bribing a first year to give her the password to the Gryffindor common room, but realised that she would be exposing their secret. It seemed a waste to expose it now, when it was ending anyway.

The day after that, however, Remus was in the Great Hall for breakfast. He had fresh scratches on his face and his right arm was in a sling, but he was alive. Cissy was starting to doubt that he wouldn't be.

He caught up with her after lunch.

"Hey, can we talk?" he asked doubtfully. As if she'd say no. As if she didn't love him any more.

"Sure," she said. But she didn't smile at him.

The air was pleasantly cool outside, so they went and sat by the lake, far from the prying eyes of gossiping Hogwarts students.

"I'm sorry I didn't tell you," Remus said when he sat down.

"It's Ok," Cissy assured him, "I'm not sure what I would have done had I known."

"Probably kept a safe distance away so I wouldn't have put you in danger." He replied bitterly. Cissy placed a hand on his placatively but he drew it away, wincing slightly. He couldn't look her in the eye, remembering resentfully the way his wolf self had yearned to scratch them out of her pretty little head. It had been worse than he had ever experienced it that night. He had wanted to keep away from Cissy so badly that the efforts of his demon half were redoubled. He had spent most of the day trying to get up off the floor of the shack and stumble back to Hogwarts. He hadn't made it halfway through when he had fainted and woken up in Madam Pomfrey's private room, spared only for the worst of cases.

The conversation wasn't as dramatic or explosive as either of them had expected. Both had thought that their love would at least have the dignity to burst into flame and destroy everything in its path, but instead it was coming to a sedate and dissatisfied end. It felt like they were sobering, like sense was returning to them slowly, brushing out the cobwebs in their mind so they could see clearly. It was like reaching the top of the mountain and realising that actually, the sky wasn't bluer and the world wasn't lighter, everything was just a little smaller.

They talked through Remus' predicament. Remus explained how they could never be, because every

month he turned into a monster, and every month he had to hurt himself more to stay away from her, and how he could never have children because he could never give this curse to something so small and so innocent and with such a perfect mother. And Cissy held his hand as he cried as each word struck the truth like a knell being rapped over and over again.

And Cissy explained how her parents had already made the arrangements and how, once she had finished her seventh year, Lucius Malfoy intended to marry her, and Remus wished the two every happiness.

They were both crying by the end. Neither dared confess their love again, it would only make things harder.

"Thanks, Remus," Cissy smiled sadly, wiping away the tears futilely. More just fell to replace the old ones.

"It was nice," Remus agreed.

And then they kissed, a sweet final kiss. And Remus cupped Cissy's cheek and told her everything she wanted to hear. He told her she'd do fine without him, and her life as a Malfoy would be better than their life could ever be, and that she would never come to know the unhappiness he had learnt to endure.

And he whispered lies to her until she was swept away from him by the wind and out of his sight.

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_**A/N: Thanks for reading this! It was sort of a distraction from my GCSEs which admittedly was probably a bad idea so I hope it doesn't savour of a guilty conscience and Chemistry revision. If you enjoyed please review, thanks xx**_


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